How Hearing Aids Are Programmed

Have you ever tried putting on another person’s glasses? The chances are that you saw a blur because the lenses were not sculpted to meet the requirements for your eyes to see well. By understanding that relationship, you can see that the analogy holds up in other areas as well, such as hearing aids. Hearing aids require a great deal of programming to help a person overcome their hearing impairment. An audiologist is a hearing specialist that can program these devices, and are important to the overall hearing health of their patient. We will look at the programming process to see how much work goes into each hearing aid and the benefits of doing so.

What Factors Can Be Adjusted?

Any person that uses a hearing aid device will find that there are many different things that can be changed for the bettering of their hearing abilities. Among these options are volume, max output, frequency, and the overall level of noise reduction. When used carefully and adjusted within a hearing aid, the individual will have the ability to find the settings that allows them to have the greatest amount of hearing success.

Processing Time

Any person that has had a hearing aid knows that there are some settings that come with the device, but do not necessarily help you. The factory settings on a digital hearing aid rarely coincide with the actual needs by the individual using them. That is why programming and customization is such an important step in the overall process. In order to begin this process you need to go to a hearing professional and have them examine various aspects of your hearing through a series of tests. This can take some time as you will need to fine tune aspects of your hearing again and again as your brain begins to get used to the new sounds. At the end of the day, you should understand that the best thing that you can do for you is to go through these tests. While they may be annoying at first, the increments of improvement will astonish you with your optimized hearing experience.

Programming Hearing Aids

There are three major steps that you can go through with a hearing specialist to ensure that you get the best hearing outcomes for your device. The first thing that you will be directed to do is to submit to an ear probe that will determine how much sound is making it into your inner ear and against your ear drum. Then, your specialist will use a special visual speech mapping scan to see which sounds are being picked up and interpreted by your brain. Combined, they will find out the best way to program your hearing aid so that you have great hearing. Then, they run you through a small trial period where they have the patient go into a surround sound simulation of various noises that you can encounter in your day to day life. The end results are a hearing device that serves to meet your needs in a variety of areas. Overall, your hearing will never be better than with a digital hearing aid that is customized by an audiologist.